Anil Bhoyrul
BornMay 1966 (age 57)
Mauritius[1]
NationalityBritish[1]
OccupationBusiness journalist
Years active1993-current
Known forInsider trading
Criminal chargesConspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act 1986
Criminal penalty180 hours of community service

Anil Bhoyrul (born Mauritius,[1] May 1966)[2] is a British[1] business journalist who was convicted of breaching the Financial Services Act 1986 in the 'City Slickers' share tipping scandal of 1999-2000. After writing for the Sunday Express, he joined Arabian Business in Dubai, and is now CEO of JES Media.

Early life

He was born in Mauritius[1] and moved to the UK when he was 14.[3] He graduated in Civil Engineering in 1988.[1]

BusinessAge and Sunday Business

Bhoyrul started working in civil engineering but soon switched to journalism.[4] In 1993 he joined BusinessAge magazine under its editor and owner Tom Rubython, becoming deputy editor the following year.[4] Rubython sold the title to VNU in 1995; according to PR Week "The legend of the pre-VNU BusinessAge was that it went down in a welter of writs".[4] In April 1996[5] Rubython launched the Sunday Business with Bhoyrul as editor,[4] but despite strong initial sales and investment by Owen Oyston, the Sunday Business struggled financially[6] and failed within a year; the Barclay brothers finalised a deal to buy it from the receivers in August 1997.[5]

Meanwhile BusinessAge had struggled under VNU and was closed in June 1996.[7] Bhoyrul saw that he did not fit in the plans of the new regime at the Sunday Business and with a consortium of investors led by Oyston[8] bought BusinessAge back from VNU.[4] BusinessAge relaunched in June 1997 with Bhoyrul as editor[9] promising "to take the title back to its glossy, controversial and scandalous best. We’ll probably ruin a few careers along the way, but only if they deserve it".[4] Oyston sold his media interests[10] after he was convicted of raping a teenager in 1997.[11] Chris Butt took over as editor in 1998,[8] when Oyston sold to Priory Publishing.

City Slickers scandal

Bhoyrul and BusinessAge colleague James Hipwell[3] then joined the Daily Mirror under editor Piers Morgan. Between incidents such as Bhoyrul getting caught stealing a penguin from London Zoo,[12] they wrote a share-tipping column called "City Slickers". They bought shares before tipping them in the newspaper, in 44 separate incidents between 1 August 1999 and 29 February 2000.[13] Bhoyrul pleaded guilty to the conspiracy on 11 August 2005.[14] He was convicted on charges of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act 1986 and sentenced to 180 hours of community service.[15] Hipwell denied the charges[13] along with private investor Terry Shepherd,[16] and they were sentenced to six months[17] and three months in prison[16] respectively.

Punch, Express and ITP

After they were sacked from the Daily Mirror in 2000,[12] Mohamed Al-Fayed gave Bhoyrul and Hipwell a column in Punch and £100,000 to turn into £1 million within 12 months.[18] They wrote a book "for Mirror readers, not your sophisticated types"[18] entitled Make a Million in Twelve Months; We did! but at the time of its launch, five months into the challenge, they had lost 30% of the money.[18] In July 2000 he was planning to write a book on the City Slickers story called A Tip Too Far, and claimed that he had had enough of newspapers and wanted to go back to Mauritius to run a bar on a beach.[18]

However soon Bhoyrul joined Richard Desmond's Express group, where he wrote articles under the byline Frank Bailey.[19] He wrote 26 negative stories about Conrad Black in the Sunday Express between September 2001 and May 2003,[20] including one questioning Black's finances that the newspaper subsequently admitted was false.[21] In May 2003 he wrote to Piers Morgan apologising for articles he had written under various pseudonyms in the Sunday Express :"Nothing would make me happier than not having to write all this stuff, but then nobody else pays me £6k a month...the thinking behind that column comes as you can guess from people above me".[22]

In 2004 he moved to Dubai to become editor of Arabian Business,[16] a weekly English-language magazine published by ITP Media Group. He left the magazine suddenly in 2005[16] but stayed with ITP and became editor-in-chief. He left in June 2020, shortly after Arabian Business introduced a paywall.[23] As of March 2021 he is CEO of JES Media in Dubai.[24]

Personal life

Bhoyrul is married to Branka, a Slovenian photographer.[25] They have three children - Joe, Evita and Savannah.[26] In 2018, worried that his children were becoming too spoilt and materialistic in Dubai, he got them to each throw a dart at a world map and as a result sent them to live in La Paz, Bolivia for two years.[26] He is a fan of Arsenal F.C.[26]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Raffles World Academy Advisory Council Members". FORWARD. Raffles World Academy. 26 October 2017. p. 4.
  2. ↑ "Anil BHOYRUL". Companies House. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  3. 1 2 Woods, Richard (11 December 2005). "The editor, the mud and the Slickers". Sunday Times. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Armstrong, Stephen (2 May 1997). "Media: Profile - Dawning of a new BusinessAge, Anil Bhoyrul, editor, BusinessAge". PR Week. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  5. 1 2 "Barclay Bros buy Sunday Business". Marketing Week. 28 August 1997. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  6. ↑ Horsman, Mathew (13 May 1996). "An unfortunate business". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022.
  7. ↑ "BusinessAge to close after weak sales". Marketing Week. 31 May 1996. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  8. 1 2 Byrne, Ciar (16 December 2002). "Business Age shuts down". The Guardian.
  9. ↑ Rogers, Danny (25 April 1997). "MEDIA: In Brief - BusinessAge is resurrected". PR Week. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  10. ↑ "Oyston sells a radio station". Lancashire Telegraph. 25 June 1999. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  11. ↑ "Jailed Oyston could lose radio stations". BBC News. 12 December 1997. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  12. 1 2 Teather, David (21 February 2000). "'We're history'". The Guardian.
  13. 1 2 "City Slickers guilty of tip scam". BBC News. 7 December 2005. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  14. ↑ "City slickers found guilty". Government News Network. 7 December 2005. Archived from the original on 13 May 2006. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  15. ↑ Slattery, Jon (26 January 2006). "Slickers had no guidance from bosses, says judge". Press Gazette. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  16. 1 2 3 4 "Dubai-based journalist sentenced for share tipping scandal". ITP Media Group. 20 January 2006. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  17. ↑ Daley, James (11 February 2006). "Slicker Hipwell gets six months for 'Mirror' scam". Archived from the original on 7 May 2022.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Murphy, Paul (26 July 2000). "The insiders' story". The Guardian.
  19. ↑ McCarthy, Kieren (16 November 2002). "Black issues writ over Express articles". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 July 2006.
  20. ↑ Pidd, Helen (14 July 2009). "Richard Desmond in '11th-hour dash to visit Conrad Black' before libel trial". The Guardian.
  21. ↑ Evans, Martin; Brown, Martyn (14 July 2009). "Daily Express proprietor scorns claim of vendetta against a rival publisher". Daily Express.
  22. ↑ Morgan, Piers (2012). The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. Random House. p. 382. ISBN 9781446491683.
  23. ↑ Allison, Austyn (14 June 2020). "Anil Bhoyrul leaves ITP". Campaign Middle East. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  24. ↑ "Meet the team". JES Media. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  25. ↑ "Branka Bhoyrul". Branka Bhoyrul. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  26. 1 2 3 Bhoyrul, Anil (5 September 2019). ""Why I sent my wife and kids to live halfway across the world from Dubai"". Esquire Middle East. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
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